HP Photosmart R927 8.2Mp compact digital camera

The HP Photosmart R927 is the company's first 8Mp camera, and though you'll rarely need all that resolution to make a very big enlargement, it does give you the freedom to crop down to a small portion of your photo and still get a high-quality print.

The HP Photosmart R927 has a big 3in LCD and a metal body that feels sturdy. It is the company's first 8Mp camera, and though you'll rarely need all that resolution to make a very big enlargement, the HP Photosmart R927 does give you the freedom to crop down to a small portion of your photo and still get a high-quality print.

The HP Photosmart R927 performed quite well in our image quality tests, its photos earning very high marks for their color accuracy, exposure accuracy, and sharpness. The HP Photosmart R927's only shortcoming was distortion; this was more noticeable in shots taken of a target resolution chart than in shots from most other models.

At 1in thick, the HP Photosmart R927 isn't ultra-slim, but it fits easily enough into a shirt pocket. And at 170g, the HP Photosmart R927 is slightly heavier than many of the point-and-shoot cameras we've recently tested.

The HP Photosmart R927 packs a lot of processing options for shutterbugs who would rather not edit their images on a PC. You can make an image look something like an aged photo print, or add an effect that's something like a watercolor painting or cartoon. It took the HP Photosmart R927 anywhere from eight to 11 seconds to add one of these effects to images shot at normal resolution (5Mp). The results were generally good, though the initial thrill quickly faded. The more subtle color modification settings were more useful (and took less time to process, about 4 seconds): You can convert an image to black-and-white or sepia, as well as add a color tint. The oddest effect is called slimming, which distorts the picture slightly to take a few pounds off self-conscious subjects. Taking a few pounds off the waistline, however, made the head of one subject look unnaturally thin.

These days, around £70 will buy you around 20 rolls of Kodak Gold film, which will give you about 720 exposures - or it'll net you a Kodak EasyShare C913 digital camera, which gives you a practically unlimited number of exposures.